The Federalist No. 27

Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common
Defense Considered (continued)

New York PacketTuesday, December 25, 1787 [Alexander
Hamilton]

To the People of the State of New York:

IT HAS
been urged, in different shapes, that a Constitution of the kind proposed by the
convention cannot operate without the aid of a military force to execute its
laws. This, however, like most other things that have been alleged on that side,
rests on mere general assertion, unsupported by any precise or intelligible
designation of the reasons upon which it is founded. As far as I have been able
to divine the latent meaning of the objectors, it seems to originate in a
presupposition that the people will be disinclined to the exercise of federal
authority in any matter of an internal nature. Waiving any exception that might
be taken to the inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal
and external, let us inquire what ground there is to presuppose that
disinclination in the people. Unless we presume at the same time that the powers
of the general government will be worse administered than those of the State
government, there seems to be no room for the presumption of ill-will,
disaffection, or opposition in the people. I believe it may be laid down as a
general rule that their confidence in and obedience to a government will
commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration. It
must be admitted that there are exceptions to this rule; but these exceptions
depend so entirely on accidental causes, that they cannot be considered as
having any relation to the intrinsic merits or demerits of a constitution. These
can only be judged of by general principles and maxims.

Various reasons have been suggested, in the course of
these papers, to induce a probability that the general government will be better
administered than the particular governments; the principal of which reasons are
that the extension of the spheres of election will present a greater option, or
latitude of choice, to the people; that through the medium of the State
legislatures which are select bodies of men, and which are to appoint the
members of the national Senate there is reason to expect that this branch will
generally be composed with peculiar care and judgment; that these circumstances
promise greater knowledge and more extensive information in the national
councils, and that they will be less apt to be tainted by the spirit of faction,
and more out of the reach of those occasional ill-humors, or temporary
prejudices and propensities, which, in smaller societies, frequently contaminate
the public councils, beget injustice and oppression of a part of the community,
and engender schemes which, though they gratify a momentary inclination or
desire, terminate in general distress, dissatisfaction, and disgust. Several
additional reasons of considerable force, to fortify that probability, will
occur when we come to survey, with a more critical eye, the interior structure
of the edifice which we are invited to erect. It will be sufficient here to
remark, that until satisfactory reasons can be assigned to justify an opinion,
that the federal government is likely to be administered in such a manner as to
render it odious or contemptible to the people, there can be no reasonable
foundation for the supposition that the laws of the Union will meet with any
greater obstruction from them, or will stand in need of any other methods to
enforce their execution, than the laws of the particular members.

The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition;
the dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not
the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power, can
call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy, be more
likely to repress the former sentiment and to inspire the
latter, than that of a single State, which can only command the
resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a State may easily suppose
itself able to contend with the friends to the government in that State; but it
can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a match for the combined
efforts of the Union. If this reflection be just, there is less danger of
resistance from irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the
Confederacy than to that of a single member.

I will, in this place, hazard an observation, which will
not be the less just because to some it may appear new; which is, that the more
the operations of the national authority are intermingled in the ordinary
exercise of government, the more the citizens are accustomed to meet with it in
the common occurrences of their political life, the more it is familiarized to
their sight and to their feelings, the further it enters into those objects
which touch the most sensible chords and put in motion the most active springs
of the human heart, the greater will be the probability that it will conciliate
the respect and attachment of the community. Man is very much a creature of
habit. A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little
influence upon his mind. A government continually at a distance and out of sight
can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the people. The inference
is, that the authority of the Union, and the affections of the citizens towards
it, will be strengthened, rather than weakened, by its extension to what are
called matters of internal concern; and will have less occasion to recur to
force, in proportion to the familiarity and comprehensiveness of its agency. The
more it circulates through those channls and currents in which the passions of
mankind naturally flow, the less will it require the aid of the violent and
perilous expedients of compulsion.

One thing, at all events, must be evident, that a
government like the one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of
using force, than that species of league contend for by most of its opponents;
the authority of which should only operate upon the States in their political or
collective capacities. It has been shown that in such a Confederacy there can be
no sanction for the laws but force; that frequent delinquencies in the members
are the natural offspring of the very frame of the government; and that as often
as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence.

The plan reported by the convention, by extending the
authority of the federal head to the individual citizens of the several States,
will enable the government to employ the ordinary magistracy of each, in the
execution of its laws. It is easy to perceive that this will tend to destroy, in
the common apprehension, all distinction between the sources from which they
might proceed; and will give the federal government the same advantage for
securing a due obedience to its authority which is enjoyed by the government of
each State, in addition to the influence on public opinion which will result
from the important consideration of its having power to call to its assistance
and support the resources of the whole Union. It merits particular attention in
this place, that the laws of the Confederacy, as to the enumerated and
legitimate objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME
LAW of the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative,
executive, and judicial, in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an
oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the respective members,
will be incorporated into the operations of the national government as far
as its just and constitutional authority extends; and will be rendered
auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.1
Any man who will pursue, by his own reflections, the consequences of this
situation, will perceive that there is good ground to calculate upon a regular
and peaceable execution of the laws of the Union, if its powers are administered
with a common share of prudence. If we will arbitrarily suppose the contrary, we
may deduce any inferences we please from the supposition; for it is certainly
possible, by an injudicious exercise of the authorities of the best government
that ever was, or ever can be instituted, to provoke and precipitate the people
into the wildest excesses. But though the adversaries of the proposed
Constitution should presume that the national rulers would be insensible to the
motives of public good, or to the obligations of duty, I would still ask them
how the interests of ambition, or the views of encroachment, can be promoted by
such a conduct?

PUBLIUS

1. The sophistry which has been employed
to show that this will tend to the destruction of the State governments, will,
in its will, in its proper place, be fully detected.